There are several ways to define this material, and the definition that is most accurate might change depending on what perspective you are looking at it from. Even I have answered this question in a couple different ways as my own steel journey has progressed, so it is no surprise that there are differing views on this.
I think that the first thing we have to address is that the word “wootz” is derived from an Indian (sub-continent rather than Native American) word for crucible steel. There is some argument in academic circles about the exact derivation, but there doesn’t seem to be much doubt that it was originally an Indian word. This makes perfect sense since the oldest archaeological evidence for crucible steel manufacturing comes from India and Sri Lanka.
This would indicate that the definition of “wootz” should simply be: the crucible steel produced historically in India. There are a number of complicating factors, though, and I’ll go into a few of them below.
First, the history of crucible steel manufacture in The Sub-Continent is a very long one, with the earliest direct evidence being from over 2000 years ago. There is indirect evidence that indicates that the technology may go back even further, but the important part in this case is simply that the technology has existed for a very long time. This means that it has changed substantially since the beginning, and also there arose a number of variations on the process within the areas of what are now India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Do we call all of the materials produced through these related processes by the same name? Did the people at the time call them by the same name? To my knowledge there are still a huge number of question marks and ongoing research in this arena.
As touched upon above, there were a number of different processes that developed over time within the region of The Sub-Continent, which would be complicated enough, but there are also crucible steel processes that arose in more distant locations. It seems reasonable that these separate processes were seeded originally through knowledge passed along trade networks, but we cannot know this for certain at this point. Crucible steel processes were found at different points in history throughout a much broader region, including in Persia, China, Turkey, the Caucasus, and beyond. Some of these processes were fully independent, while others used ingots purchased from India as the feed material for an additional crucible process. Each of these regions adds multiple additional names, such as pulad, polat, bulat, etc. Do these words have the same definition now that they did at the time? Again, it is hard to be certain.
The two main takeaways from this are that crucible steel manufacture has an incredibly long history and that this history stretches over an enormous geographical area. There were multiple different crucible steels made, in some cases with a single area producing multiple different products even at a single point in history. Thus it is no surprise that we don’t have a clean definition for the term “wootz” in the historical/cultural context.
One thing we can be certain of is that India was the single largest producer of crucible steel ingots over a period of many centuries, and records indicate that these ingots were traded extensively over a vast area. Wootz ingots from India made their way into Europe, Africa, China, and Japan. They were most heavily traded within The Sub-Continent and the Middle East, but the overall reach is quite astonishing given that all of the areas they were traded to had steel-making traditions of their own.
I am dealing in a lot of generalities here and this is partly because a lot of things are not known for certain by anyone as well as that my knowledge of the many facets of wootz is far from complete. There are a lot of pet theories out there, unsubstantiated myths, and outright lies, but there are also a lot of smiths and academics still searching for more definitive answers. It is an ever-evolving body of knowledge and we should view this as a good thing rather than a bad one.
Moving on, perhaps the biggest complication comes in the fact that wootz is both a historical as well as a modern material. There is a natural tendency to want a simple, catch-all term for all crucible steels, both modern and historical. To be clear, I am talking about the small-batch steels made by individual smiths or at small scales rather than the larger commercial operations that arose based on the original crucible technology. There were certainly commercial operations in India (and elsewhere) that were putting out enormous volumes of crucible steel during the historical period, but the size of the ingots themselves was still quite small. The industrial processes that eventually arose during the Industrial Revolution differed both in the fact that the crucibles contained far more material as well as that the molten steel was poured into molds rather than solidifying within the vessel.
The rise of other steel-making technology during the Industrial Revolution was, among other factors, a major reason for the decline of crucible steel manufacture within India and throughout the region. Despite what has been reported elsewhere, there was never a complete halt to crucible steel production, but output became so low as to be almost nonexistent. During this period there was a huge interest in wootz, however, and many attempts to reproduce the material throughout Europe and Russia. There was only moderate success in these endeavors, but the research into wootz was the root of a great number of metallurgical advances.
If I look around the world today I can see multiple smiths creating crucible steels using a variety of starting materials and with a variety of outcomes in mind. Some are looking to reproduce the materials of the past, while others are looking to create small batches of custom alloys with specific performance characteristics in mind. I have explored both of these avenues so I can say with some authority that these are very different endeavors producing very different materials.
It makes some sense that folks want to just call all of it “wootz”, but I think this is a mistake. The desire to have a catch-all term comes, I think, from two basic sources. The first is that we all like to have a simple, shorthand word for referring to a broader category. For example, we use the word “bread” as a catch-all for what is, in fact, an absolutely astonishing array of different processes and end products. If I say “I had bread with my soup” I am leaving it up to the other person to fill in what type of bread I am talking about. I could be talking about naan while the other person is envisioning a sourdough peasant loaf, and this means that we haven’t actually communicated particularly well, all because I used a catch-all word.
In the case of “wootz” this brings me to the second reason why many smiths and purveyors like to use the word “wootz”: it is a word that carries an enormous amount of historical significance, and using it can attach some of that significance to an item that the purveyor trying to sell. This can obviously be done with either good or bad intentions, but if we use “wootz” as a catch-all term then we leave the door open to bad actors using the ambiguity to their advantage.
So my position is that we should follow the lead of the academic community on this. There was a period of time when European historians and metallurgists were using “wootz” when talking about any sort of historical crucible steel, but in more recent years they have changed to using “crucible steel” as the catch-all term. As noted above, the origin of the term “wootz” is from a specific location and referred to a specific material or process, so trying to use it as both a specific and as a general term could only cause confusion. Researchers have also come to realize that there were substantial differences between the various crucible steel processes and end materials, so it made sense that the catch-all term needed to be fairly broad.
I have been as guilty as many other folks of using “wootz” in this fashion, but as I have thought about the issue further and come to understand the history better I have shifted to using “crucible steel” when I am speaking in general terms. This has been for three major reasons: 1) it aligns much better with the terminology in research papers, 2) it is more respectful of the historical smiths and historical processes, and 3) it allows a clearer conversation about these materials.
All of these are important, but I think that last one is worth elaborating on a bit more. If I do a search on the internet for “wootz” I will get some results that are historical in nature, but I will also get a huge number of results about new steels. A substantial number of these will be things like “Wootz steel from ball bearings!” or “Wootz steel made from old knives!”…which can be summed up as “I put this trash in a crucible and MAGIC made it into an amazing steel!” In my opinion this is the greatest danger of using “wootz” as the catch-all term: it practically begs for people to misuse it for financial benefit.
As I have laid out in this article, “wootz” is a word that brings with it the weight of its long history and rich mythology, so we should be very careful in how we use it. There are modern smiths making crucible steels that should qualify for the “wootz” designation, but there are also smiths making crucible steels that bear little relation to the original material; simply being melted in a crucible should not be enough. In this latter category can be found some excellent steels and steelmakers, but we can also find ample examples of snake-oil salesmen who are simply cashing in on the lack of clearly defined terminology.
In summary, I believe that “crucible steel” is the term we should use for the broader category, while “wootz” should be reserved for the steels that match more closely with the historical material and process. I think there would be strong arguments for defining some of the more specific regional words/materials, such as “pulad”, “bulat”, etc., but that is getting beyond my knowledge level. There are researchers and other smiths working in those realms, and I leave it to them to clarify further.
If you have any questions or comments please email them to me directly. I have a very busy schedule so I can’t devote time to dealing with Spam comments and Trolls on my blog posts. I do want to hear feedback from actual readers, but I don’t have time or patience for Bots. -Peter